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December 29, 2006
"But It Wouldn't Be Christmas without Gifts!"
Posted by Dipika at 11:44 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 27, 2006
Greetings from yuletime New York
I was in New York in the early part of December, and this is part of what I put down in my little red book I carried around there... Happy Holidays!
"They've got cars
Big as bars
They've got rivers of gold"
-so sang Shane McGowan of The Pogues in "Fairytale of New York" (my and many Irish's choice of Christmas song). It is true that in this time of year more than any other that New York really comes across as a Big Department Store. I am here on a mission to find good design, an inspiration to my studio back in Seattle, but bad designs abound here in New York as in any other place; from a restaurant's sliding doors that never properly close and no one can figure out how to open, to a hand-written menu and storefront signs that are plain ugly. This fact really shouldn't be a surprise for me, but it hits particularly close home this time. Maybe it's because I am desperate for good examples this time.
Not that I didn't see good stuff here: the museums here are always bigger and deeper than you can ever prepare yourself to, and there's plenty of great street art -- real original graffiti. But at the end of the day, I had to question why I had to cross the continent to come here in search of inspiration. What was it that compelled me so to make this trip?
Then, as I stroll around East Village, Williamsburg, and then Central Park, on this uncharacteristically glorious, warm winter day, it hits me: the appeal of this megalopolis dwells not so much within its authentic sophistication or genuine creativity (these things, like a good cup of coffee or a well-poured pint of Guinness, isn't easy to find anywhere, period), but in the sheer swagger of the place, the attitude of the culture here.
The city is one of the oldest. Sure, there are plenty of other cities in the world with longer history. But if you limit the scope to just the modern commerce and migration of people (which only got going in the late 19th Century), you can't deny that New York has just as much history as Paris or London. History, taken as a culmination of stories, about and on places and people there, compound, tend to lend its inhabitant a sense of place and belonging. That's my theory, anyway, on why in New York, even in today's uncertain political future and security, self-contentment is tactile in the air.
As someone said, confidence brews appeal, and I remain just as attracted to this city as I first laid my eyes on it, fifteen years ago.
Posted by Akira at 11:35 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 19, 2006
Pointy Phylogenetic Thing on Wheels
Dinosaurs didn't make it to 2007. They had voracious appetites and ran around on Earth like they owned the place. Then the Ice Age came, and that was the end of it. The stegosauraus lot didn't think "climate change" was real.
Today homo sapiens build tiny items like this to entertain their young. Assemblages of bone structures found in ruins of Antarctica are used to guess at these forms, though exact skin colors are unknown. It is widely believed the stegosauraus' skin was a blend of cobalt and green.
Posted by Dipika at 12:43 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 2, 2006
Big Knits Hit Seattle
[Reprinted by permission from Design-Kompany.com]
About 1,000 people trekked to Seattle Center today to look at crafts made by local designers and a handful from further afield. Boston and Toronto, for example. The event? A two-day exhibition at Seattle Center called "Urban Craft Uprising."
Styled after "trunk shows," where people transported in trunks their handmade goods to sell in community gathering spaces, this event brings together independent craftspeople of like urban fashion sensibilities.
"It's an underground movement, in all different parts of the country," said Lindsey Ross, one of the organizers for Urban Craft Uprising, which is in its second year in Seattle. A lot got started in Austin, Texas, she said, and as people in other metropolitan spots learned about it, they got inspired. "People are divorcing the idea of crafting from, say, grannies knitting blankets. Men are getting into it, too. They can be some of the best knitters."
If you are into local and handmade crafts, like knits, beaded jewelry and bags made from seat belts that manufacturers couldn't use, check it out on Sunday.
Urban Craft Uprising.
Seattle Center Exhibition Hall
11am - 5pm :: Sunday, December 3
Free
Posted by Dipika at 5:36 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack